Stupid hipster 80s fetishism notwithstanding, cassette tapes don't get much love. That's a shame, because magnetic tape is still a surprisingly robust way to back up data. Especially now: Sony just unveiled tape that holds a whopping 148 GB per square inch, meaning a cassette could hold 185 TB of data. Prepare for the mixtape to end all mixtapes.

Technology can be so cool, even when it's semi-retro. This is a neat article that about storing a LOT of data on a cassette tape. I still have some laying around my house, so perhaps I will be able to save all of my iTunes downloads on one cassette! :-) Before I got my current job, I always associated the company where I'm consulting, BASF, with cassette tapes. Perhaps this will be a re-emergence of cassettes! Time will tell. We just have to make sure they don't break so easily and I don't have to splice them like I did when I was a kid.

Curation is sometimes confusing. Everyone has a different definition and it's used in many different ways as part of content and marketing strategies.

I asked 10 of my favorite curation experts for their best tips, tools, their favorite curator and suggestions on innovative uses of curation. Each is a curator on Scoop.it, my favorite curation tool and channel. New and experienced curators are going to learn from their advice.

There are over 60 million blogs all over the world powered by Wordpress. With all these blogs competing for attention, you must be sure that your content is optimized with the newest and best wordpress SEO plugins.

Nancy Seeger's insight:

Not the list that I would have chosen, but he has a few I didn't know about either.

Posted by Brittan Bright Whether the objection is over a line in your contract or an aspect of your process, when a client's thinking doesn't align with your own, moving projects forward can be difficult or impossible.

StartMe creates clutter-free, well designed and highly scannable editable start pages where you can easily add, edit, move around and re-order and group your favorite links and bookmarks in any way you want..."

StartMe creates clutter-free, well designed and highly scannable editable start pages where you can easily add, edit, move around and re-order and group your favorite links and bookmarks in any way you want.

You can create as many start pages as you want and you can choose to start either from a pre-populated links and feeds page that can be edited and customized or completely from scratch.

Groups and individual items (links and RSS feeds) can be easily edited and dragged around easily. It is possible to decide how many news stories appear in a feed list and you can even switch on a "river of news" option that will combine chronologically all the news of a list of feeds.

It is also possible to integrate a search engine for each start page that will search using your search engine of choice.

My comment: I can't recommend this tool enough. Easy, fast, effective and elegant. It's a breeze to use and it's so damn useful for creating start pages for a thousand different uses: tools lists organized in groups, suggested sites to visit subdivided in sub-topics, collections of people profiles in specific sectors, etc.

25 Ideas For Blog Posts It’s is amazing to me that we are already in 2014, feels like just yesterday that I was day dreaming of all my big plans for 2013. I can promise you that 2014 will fly by just as fast.

You should always keep search engine optimization in the forefront of your mind, and always follow best practices. Skipping the basics of SEO will leave your site's foundation a mess and prevent you from fully maximizing revenue opportunities.

Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query – the whole sentence or conversation or meaning – is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words.

Among the types of content curation that are broadly used, content aggregation has been one of the first and most popular approaches that has naturally sprung up.

Content aggregation itself can be carried out in many different ways, from a completely manual approach to a fully automated one, with many different shades in between.

If you are interested in learning more about these, and about how to aggregate content in the most ethical and professional fashion, I strongly suggest reading these two short articles written by two curation professionals:

The first, by Mindy McAdams is a curated version of the second one which was published more than a year earlier by Steve Buttry. Together they do an excellent job of clarifying to the non-expert what curation and aggregation are all about.

The two articles offer clear guidelines, real-world examples and recommendations on how you can make content aggregation provide true additional value to both the content sources used and to the readers alike.

SEO in the digital marketing mix is here to stay. Standardizing a definition of SEO will help buyers better understand the importance of it, the reason for committing to it, and the short- and long-term impact an SEO strategy has on a web presence.

Is Web Presence Optimization the Evolution of SEO?

So what is an accurate description of SEO given the changes to the industry?

Web presence optimization is an all-encompassing approach to optimizing an entire web presence for organic search including the website, social channels, blogs, articles and press releases. Where strategies, techniques, and tactics are still used, but content marketing and social media are strongly incorporated.

I'm not sure I agree with this 100%. I have always focused on quality content before SEO tactics. Now Google thinks this is valid, hooray. It's an interesting pyramid diagram, but I believe places too much emphasis on technical SEO. Quality content wins and Google's SEO modifications now reflect this.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.